


The Thing That Shall Not Be Named

by josephina_x



Series: Threesome??? Uh, -no- [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: (I totally do), (and I am not sorry about this), (because I do), (have I ever mentioned how much I love AO3 tags?), (seriously there is no sex of any kind here), (yeah I am having a weird day so I guess just go with it please), Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, I am a crime against humanity, Narrator Voice Is Dumb And OOC, No Sex, Rating for Language, Shut up and live with it b!tches, So is my fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark has a <i>thing</i> that he does. Sometimes. Whenever he's feeling jittery.</p><p>(Chloe is not allowed to name it.)</p><p>(Also this is not about any threesome of any kind ever, and Lois needs to shut up and go die in a fire now, please and thank you!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing That Shall Not Be Named

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eccentricallypeculiar](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=eccentricallypeculiar), [ArghressivePirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArghressivePirate/gifts).



> Title: The Thing That Shall Not Be Named  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark & Lex, Lexana, Lois/Oliver (Lollie?(pop?) Oliveis? LOLiver? is that even a thing? *shrug?*)  
> Rating: R (for language)  
> Word count: 7100+  
> Spoilers: general through season 6, specifically up through 6x04  
> Warnings: Eh. Got some mild psychological torture in there, I guess, but no worse than canon (...I think?)  
> Summary: Clark has a _thing_ that he does. Sometimes. Whenever he's feeling jittery.
> 
> (Chloe is not allowed to name it.)
> 
> (Also this is not about any threesome of any kind ever, and Lois needs to shut up and go die in a fire now, please and thank you!)  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> Author's Note: [eccentricallypeculiar over on tumblr quoted this](http://eccentricallypeculiar.tumblr.com/post/48142967815/lana-it-feels-like-a-lifetime-since-i-lived) from [6x03 Wither (among other things, because that ep was full of win)](http://tvmegasite.net/prime/shows/smallville/transcripts/season6/6-3.shtml):  
> \--------------------------------------------  
> Lana: It feels like a lifetime since I lived here.  
> Chloe: Yeah, well, a sprawling 17th-century mansion isn't a bad upgrade.  
> Lana: Well, actually, it's getting kind of crowded in there.  
> Chloe: Water?  
> Lana: Please. Lex seems to think that I'm dragging Clark's ghost around with me.  
> Chloe: And he didn't sign up for a threesome?  
> \--------------------------------------------  
> and then asked where the fanfic was.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> I hate you all so much.
> 
> (Shut up. Yes I do.)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (...heh, _LOLiver_ , I crack me up)
> 
> Dedication: For y'all out there, doing what you do. With the lunacy in the news today and yesterday, I figure we could all use a little WTF pick-me-up, so... here's my attempt at it. Hope you enjoy :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark was really tired of all these new powers. (Seriously, why didn't he come with an instruction manual? Getting along with Earthlings was hard enough as it was!)

Feeling floaty made him... float in his sleep. (So he tried real hard not to feel floaty when he was awake because, uh, _hello_ , fear of heights?)

Feeling headache-y made him _see through walls_. (So he focused until he only felt headache-y behind his eyes when he did that shit. Luckily, he was almost completely used to getting hurt with kill-me-with-a-spork-now-please Kryptonite at the drop of a hat these days; a simple dumb headache was totally manageable until the pain finally went away.)

Feeling horny made him shoot fire from his eyes. (So he figured out how to control it by _trying_ to be horny **all** the time -- _thanks, dad_ and cue the eyeroll ...except it actually worked. What the hell.)

Feeling isolated made him unbelievably sensitive to sound. (So he forced himself to learn not to freak out so much when he couldn't see anybody around him, which really got _amazingly_ easier **once he could see again**. --Yeah, no.)

So of course it made _perfect sense_ that feeling jittery made him a ghost. (...)

...No, really.

He'd been wanting to be able to just **disappear** sometimes for _years_ (all through high-school, in fact), and apparently he could totally do that - he just hadn't before because he hadn't been _nervous enough_ or something -- **what the hell**.

Seriously, if that Fine-BrainIAC-thing hadn't been really clear about the whole Zod-was-stripped-out-of-his-body thing not being normal, he would've been totally convinced at this point that all Kryptonians were some weird alien-ghost-things, and that maybe he'd died on Krypton, or out in deep space.

Yeah, that would make more sense. He could've been haunting his spaceship or something, and the green Kryptonite could've irradiated him for years into a super-powered alien ghost that could turn himself solid. (Seriously, what made Kryptonians immune from mutating horribly from overexposure to the stuff like everybody else? And it wasn't like they hadn't seen it all before, what with the invisible rose-gunk, and the green-K tattoos and green-K clones that had people vibrating through walls, and the ghosts who stuck around near their decaying bodies in peoples' apartment walls until they didn't, and fucking Zod. There was totally precident for this! It wouldn't even be original!)

Seriously, fuck his (after)life.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was all Chloe's fault.

(That was his story, and he was sticking to it.)

Clark had been having a Really Bad Day (not on the normal scale of really bad days either -- he was talking about the new Zod-BrainIAC-hate-in scale, thanks) and Chloe had just made it that much worse.

Honestly, he didn't know why he even bothered to talk with her anymore. (Oh, right -- Zoners and evil plants. Argh.) _Any_ way, she was taking Lana's side way ore than his side, and he would really be missing Pete right now except for how badly they'd ended things, because if Pete were here (and they were still friends), then he would be being so supportive right now, and if Pete were here (even if they weren't friends) he'd be completely on board with Lex being the Most Evil Person Ever (although there might be some 'I told you so' in there somewhere ...okay, maybe a _lot_ ).

If Pete were here, he'd have helped Clark TP the mansion, because it didn't matter if he and Lex weren't friends anymore -- it was totally against the bro code to pick up another guy's ex-girl. That didn't just _stop_ when you stopped being friends: the bro code was **for life**.

(Clark was pretty sure about that one, anyway.)

Anyway, Lex was the Most Evil Person Ever. In fact, he was the Most Evil Person On The Planet. He _had_ to be. Fine-BrainIAC hadn't just _picked_ him, the Jor-El-AI had said that Lex was the _only one who Zod could possess_. --Well, besides Clark apparently, but he would have had to be **okay with that** for Zod to possess him, and who the hell would be okay with that? Nobody _good_ , that's for sure. So. If that wasn't an indication of evilness, then what was?

He maybe should have killed Lex when he'd had the chance. If Lex was really good, then he would've rather _died_ than kill all those people and done all that horrible stuff on Dark Thursday. ...And, well, if he wasn't, then maybe he didn't _deserve_ to live.

Lex certainly wouldn't be all over Lana if he was dead.

...Okay, maybe that was a little too much. Maybe Chloe might've been onto something.

But he was having a Really Bad Day, so he forgave himself a little. Some days it was all just too much.

His mom had wanted him to attend Lex's stupid Halloween-ball-thing with her (why was she going anyway? where was the family loyalty, huh?) and had _wanted_ him to say hi to Lana. (Argh. _**MOM!!!**_ ) That _alone_ had made Clark just want to run away and hide.

Then Chloe had started up on things, and thinking about those crazy death-dealing man-eating plants had just made him _nervous_ , especially all that stuff about being able to hurt him even when he had all his powers, and it surviving by getting under people's skin and _G-R-O-W-I-N-G_ there and seeds and _oh god ICK--_

Cue shudder, and feeling jittery as hell around big maybe-possibly-plant-like-ish shadows, and jumping at shadows, and... _hel-lo new power!_ \-- he'd gone through a wall, and somehow _not_ made a big hole in it along the way.

He'd thought he must've imagined it at first, in all the dim lighting, until he'd been talking about the plant with Chloe after, and the whole thing with Jimmy just caught up to him, and he'd shuddered pretty badly, feeling like he was overcharged and too small for his skin and just... jittery. All over again.

And Chloe had been looking away at the time, but when she'd looked up at him to continue her train of thought...

...Well, she hadn't looked up at him.

She'd frowned, and stopped, and looked _through_ him. And then she'd turned her head back and forth slowly, glancing around.

"Uh, Chloe?" he'd said.

She'd acted like she hadn't heard him, then sighed -- to herself.

"Okay, Chloe. Ha ha. --Joke's over," Clark had grumbled, crossing his arms. She'd teased him earlier about not dressing up as even a ghost for Halloween and getting cornered by Lex when he could've avoided getting called out party-crashing otherwise with even a dumb sheet of a costume. 'He'd have looked right through you like you weren't even there,' she'd said, and here she was, doing it right now.

Then she'd muttered something strange about Lana and ghosts haunting the mansion and Lex, picked up her coffee mug, and made her way back upstairs to her Talon apartment.

Clark had stared after her dumbly.

He'd dropped his arms.

...And then he'd gotten kind of pissed off and figured that, well, he might as well go over to the mansion.

His reasoning had gone a little like this:

If he ran into Lex and they got into a fight, then he'd know that Chloe was full of it. (It wasn't like Lex would have any reason to go along with some prank of Chloe's, assuming he even knew about it -- because even if Chloe was sort-of defending Lex a little on the Zod-possession thing right now, they absolutely weren't _getting along_.) If he didn't... well, confirmation the other way. Either way, he'd get to pick a fight with Lex and, either way, he'd get something out of it (the satisfaction of getting to blow off some steam at somebody who deserved it from _working with Fine-BrainIAC and Zod_ , or... well).

So. One of those win-win things Lex had always used to talk about, back when they were still talking. Civilly.

Mostly.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark had been feeling even more jittery as he'd stared at the front doors of the mansion right in front of him.

(He really didn't want to run into Lana here, by the way. Ever. That would... suck.)

He'd raised a hand to knock.

\--And then his hand had gone _through_ _the door_ and he'd stumbled right through it and _what the hell_ \--

He'd finally come to a stop several feet forward, practically in the center of the main foyer.

...and Lex was standing right in front of him, staring right at him and stalking towards him briskly.

'Well, shit,' was the first and only thought that he'd had at that revelation, and his feet had practically frozen to the floor under Lex's glare while Clark had felt like he wanted to flee in panic but also felt like he couldn't fucking move an inch, either.

 _Jittery._ Yeah. That was a word for it.

He'd stood there, more than a little tongue-tied, and gone ramrod straight up to his full height, glaring down at Lex while frantically trying to think of something that would account for **this**. Unfortunately, he kind of... blanked out, and the only workable thing he managed to come up with was _meteor-rock tattoo?_ But nobody knew the formula anymore, and, knowing Lex and his Evil, Evil ways, these days he'd probably demand to see the tattoo and want to know how he'd come by it and why he was using it to break into his house when he'd made it clear that Clark was no longer welcome there ...not like any of that 'these days' would be all that different from _those days_ when they'd actually been sometimes still getting along...

Well, maybe not the 'no longer welcome' part, but the rest of it?

And while Clark was standing there, tongue-tied and completely and utterly unable to think of a good excuse (he had a feeling that 'metal fatigue' just wasn't gonna cut it this time... maybe Smallvillian termites? -- god, everybody was right, he was such a sucky liar), Lex walked right through him.

Yeah. You heard that right -- Lex had WALKED. RIGHT. THROUGH. HIM.

Cue more shudders, and Clark jumping around and freaking out and shrieking like a deranged little girl.

(He'd be glad that the foyer had such a high ceiling, except that he was _phasing through solid objects right now_ so it wasn't like he would've been making dents in the ceiling with his head, or anything, if it's been lower.)

Lex had shuddered and cursed and spun in place behind him.

(So, yeah -- all Chloe's fault.)

Clark froze.

\--And then realized in a moment of perfect crystalline clarity that the jittery feeling that he was feeling was the thing that was... doing things. So he pretty much immediately submerged himself in the sensation in a remarkable fit of self-preservation. (Really. He was very proud of himself afterwards.)

Lex's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he scanned the hallway.

He looked _right through Clark_. (Just like Chloe had.)

It was obvious he didn't see him... and probably hadn't heard him.

Well, Clark wasn't going to push his luck. (...What are you, crazy?)

\--Of course he did. He'd yelled earlier, and not been heard, so now Clark yelled some more, even jumping up and down a little (human-high), and waved his arms around like a air traffic controller on speed.

Nothing. Zero change in reaction from one Lex Luthor.

Clark realized that this was a really embarrassing thing to do, even if Lex couldn't see or hear him. So he stopped, hands slowly falling back to his sides as he began to realize that, yes, this really **was** a _thing_.

Lex frowned furiously around the foyer, before he wiped the scowl off of his face like it'd never been there at all and continued on down the hallway.

Clark stood there, shifting from foot to foot uncertainly, watching, as the front door opened, then slammed behind him.

_...Okay. Well. That went... well._

_...Now what?_

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark decided not to tell Chloe. (She'd been completely intolerable about the whole "super-breath" thing -- intolerable, SAT word, they just stuck around -- and Clark would rather eat meteor rock than find out what "cool new name" she'd give _this_ new power of his.)

Honestly? He'd rather not name it. Why did it need a name? It was a _thing_ that he did. People didn't go around just _naming_ every thing they did! ...Right?

So now he was sitting in his loft, bouncing a ball against the floorboards and wall, and every so often he'd reach for the jittery feeling and the ball would zip right through his palm and hit the back of the cushioned couch with a soft thud.

Like he wasn't even there.

He thought about how, sometimes, he really wished he really _wasn't_ there.

He sighed and let his head tilt back and hit the sofa cushions.

...He still hadn't figured out why he could go through walls, but he was okay with floors and most furniture.

Yeah. Maybe the Jor-El-AI was full of shit. Bringing people back to life was impossible; it would make more sense if he was already dead. If he was already dead, then he wouldn't be able to die again. It would explain why he hadn't died all those times when he should have.

Of course, this would mean that Jor-El had murdered his dad.

...Which he could also totally see.

Okay, so if the Jor-El-AI was insane and loved screwing with him (seriously, how else could he explain the 'one you love will die but I'm not gonna tell you who' and then bouncing between _Lana_ and _his dad_?!)... and Fine-BrainIAC was a sociopathic cult-follower-type-person (the way he'd talked about Zod was just fucking _scary_ )... and Zod was a complete psychopath who loved killing and hurting humans (see exhibit A: Dark Thursday)...

...and all Kryptonians-and-Kryptonian-things were always-crazy-ever...

\-- except for Clark, because he's been lucky and gotten to grow up with sane human parents who'd taught him way better than all that blame-the-son-for-the-father crap --

...then maybe Lex had gotten caught up between no-good-sides in an alien fight, and maybe Chloe was right (just a little), and _maybe_ it wasn't _completely_ Lex's fault after all?

But if it wasn't Lex's fault, then whose fault was it?

...Nah. It was probably _way_ more likely that Lex Was Just Evil Now. (See exhibit B: ex-girlfriend stealing. Duh!)

It was too bad that Clark couldn't just spy on Lex and figure this one out _for sure_.

_I mean, it's not he wouldn't notice if I started following him everywhere. And it's not like I could just start listening in on all his converations, or watching him through walls, or..._

_...standing in the same room with him without him even noticing watching literally **everything** he does, because I'm **totally** not a ghost-alien who can disappear and see and hear through walls like I'm in the same room even without that new **thing** , geez._

Except that would be an invasion of privacy and completely amoral and wrong.

...

 _Right_ , like anybody'd actually complained about him doing that before. The only thing mom had ever said about it was that maybe he shouldn't go looking if he knew he wouldn't like what he saw.

So yeah, if he did this, maybe he _wouldn't_ like what he found out. But not finding out would probably be _even worse_ , so...

 _Fine_ , Clark thought belligerently. _Let's do this._

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was official. Lex's job was _boring_.

It probably didn't help that Clark didn't _understand_ half of what Lex was doing, but -- still! It should be easy to tell if Lex Was Completely Evil Now no matter _what_ he was doing ...right?

"Arrrrrrrrgh," Clark complained, flopping onto the sofa and blowing out a breath of irritation as Lex's completely boring phone call kept draggin _on_ and _on_ and _on_...

Why had he ever thought Lex was _interesting_ to listen to? He was having difficulty remembering now.

"Say something in English!" Clark complained aloud for the fortieth time, as Lex continued to talk, but the words coming out of Lex's mouth remained completely unintelligible, both on their own _and_ in relation to each other.

Darnit. Lex couldn't hear him. (...Which was probably a good thing, or he'd know Clark was there.)

...Clark was probably going to have to learn Chinese.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark got books on Chinese and Russian and French and Spanish, but it really didn't seem to help. Whatever language Lex was speaking _still_ didn't make any sense. (And somehow he got the feeling that _even if_ he'd been able to bring the books with him to flip through while Lex was talking, instead of leaving them up in his loft, Lex _still_ wouldn't make sense on the phone.)

Lex was also boring in English, and nearly just as unintelligible. Project Greek-this. Project Roman-that. Do the-something with the-something-else levels of the-other-thing. Don't leave Mr. X alone with Ms. Y, because of "interpersonal issues of a sensitive nature," whatever the heck that meant. Confirm that order, run that simulation again, project those earnings, reorganize that department, _blahh blah-blahhh blah-blahhh_.

The only good part about spying on Lex was that (a) Lex worked in his library and Clark liked the library, even if he couldn't do any stuff in it but look around -- yes, it was that cool, Clark never understood why Lex had ever needed the rest of the mansion anyway -- (b) Lana never showed up during working hours, so Clark was in the free and clear there (and the one time he'd misjudged, he'd jumped through a window when he'd heard her coming).

There was also an even-better (c) -- it gave him a great excuse to get his chores done in only the fifteen minutes it needed to take him to get all the work around the farm done in these days (up from the five minutes it had used to take him when his dad had been doing half the work, and yeah, it kind of annoyed Clark sometimes now when he thought about it, because life could've been so much easier if his dad had been okay with just _pretending_ to get things done, especially after his first heart attack, and let Clark take care of everything once he was old enough -- it wasn't like anybody ever would've known...). His mom was worried, but Clark had Lois pegged: Lois was dumb. She wouldn't know how much work was done, or how long it would take, even if he gave her a painstakingly-written ledger detailing every task. (She'd get bored in the first five seconds and lose interest even if he did.)

Finally, one day, Clark got fed up. (Because how long was he going to have to wait for Lex to do something Unmistakably Evil, let alone maybe a little Good? --It had been _three days!_ ) So, the next time Lex said something in gibberish-that-was-supposed-to-be-English, perched forward on the edge of his chair -- and sounding entirely too smug in that undertone of his that was _so_ smugness, Clark had hard that one _way_ too many times before back when they had supposedly been friends and Lex had _still been spying on him_ (hah, see how you like it now!) -- Clark braced himself and felt totally justified in doing so when he poked a finger through Lex's back.

Lex reacted violently, jerking forward, going dead-white, and nearly emitting a shriek.

Clark watched as Lex shoved his chair a good three feet away from his desk, shooting to his feet, and dropped the phone. He backed up against his desk, eyes wide, hand clutching his chest, his eyes jerking back and forth in his head as he tried and failed to get a bead on his invisible assailant as he scanned the windows in the wall behind him.

 _Geez, it didn't feel **that** bad,_ Clark thought disapssionately, staring at him. He glanced down at his hand, clenching and unclenching it, then grimaced a little and shook it out to help lose the feel of the not-very-nice shiver-tingle that still made him shudder a little when he passed through a person. (People were a problem, not doors or walls or windows, open **or** closed.)

Lex still seemed to recover pretty quickly, scooping up his phone and ending the call rather abruptly. He slammed it down and continued to glance about a bit, though.

Clark did not fail to notice that Lex had no longer sounded quite so smug on the phone after.

Over the next few days (as Lex got more boring, and Clark got more agitated), Clark also found this effect _repeatable_...

It didn't occur to Clark that Lex would be more scared of something he couldn't see, understand, or predict that wasn't actually _hurting_ him, than something that was trying to kill him that he could at least see coming.

It also never would've occurred to Clark that Lex might be afraid that it might be Zod who he was feeling doing things to him. Clark knew full well that Zod was gone. Lex did not. (Clark noticed how Lex had stopped looking outward for an external agent, and started only fussing over his 'injuries' instead. He just shrugged it off as 'Lex getting used to it', not thinking that Lex had begun ever looking inward, only inward.)

It certainly didn't occur to Clark that Lex might have noticed that the persecution he felt at times stopped when he was in close proximity to one Lana Lang, nor that it would result in the perfectly logical outcome of making Lex even more desperate to be with her specifically, and spend time with her in general.

He also never saw the near-breakdowns Lex began to have every night in the gym, where he fought himself bloody against the self-defense equipment, because at least _that_ was something that he could do, that he could fight against.

He never found out that Lex had had to physically exhaust himself to be able to lie down, and then drug himself to dreamless sleep to keep the nightmares away, even before he'd begun his 'spying campaign' on Lex...

Eventually, something was going to give.

(And then, something did.)

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Please, for the _love_ of _god_ , **just give me an hour** ," Lex pleaded quietly, close to tears and only barely able to keep it out of his voice. He was utterly exhausted, his head bowed over his desk, resting on his arms, with his phone having been carefully and noiselessly off to one side as he tried to regain control. "One uninterrupted hour. _Please._ "

He waited for the next _hot-cold-there-notthere-sharp-blunt-twisting-pressure_ almost-electric **jab** from nowhere (and yet _everywhere_ ) all-at-once.

...Nothing happened.

He almost broke down crying in relief.

He got a lot done during that hour, and he sure as hell didn't question it.

(Not at the time, anyway.)

He _certainly_ didn't question it when Lana walked into the library early, right at about the time his hour would have ended.

(He did, however, weep in relief a little, as he cleaned up for an early dinner with her shortly thereafter.)

...But when he was lying in bed that night next to Lana after a very restful evening with her, dead-tired from wearing himself out after only an hour in the gym and waiting for the drugs to kick in, it occurred to him that there was no way in _hell_ that Zod would _never_ listen to a mere human's desperate pleas and give them a reprieve of any sort, let alone his own Vessel, if he was inhabiting it. Not if he had understood Lana's depiction of the facts correctly... and the news reports... and the classified military reports that he'd had to bribe and steal and almost cross the line to _murder_ to get his hands on. (--He had needed to know what he'd done. What Zod had made him do. He couldn't _fix_ it, otherwise. He _had to make it right_.)

It also occurred to him that it made no sense that the persecution stop when Lana was nearby. Zod had wanted her around, and been angry with her by the end. The alien should have been _more_ active, not less. It was almost as if whatever had been messing with him would not, or could not, continue attacking him in her presence.

And, really, that made no sense at all. Of all the people Lex could think of, there was no-one who hated him that much who would fear her or her wrath. It wasn't as though she could stop him -- Lex certainly couldn't.

So he tried thinking of it from the opposite direction: who might want to avoid Lana Lang? Who might try to stay away from her?

\--Well, no-one. Not really. Not that he could think of. No-one was _afraid_ of her, obviously, and had no reason to be -- not yet -- though certainly she could be dangerous if she wanted, but that was the sort of thing that Lex would be perfectly happy to keep secret unless she wished it otherwise. People didn't exactly _flock_ to her, of course -- not yet, but Lex was going to change all that, she _would_ be accepted by his circles of peers, and he would move heaven and earth to make that happen for her -- but no-one avoided her, either. Not outright. Not _actively_.

...Actually, that wasn't quite true. Lex could say that of no-one, except...

...in fact, the only person Lex could think of who _ever_ positively _fled_ from her presence these days was--

Lex blinked up at the ceiling as that thought completed itself, tied itself off, and then wrapped itself up neatly in a bow, with a flourish and a little two-step measure to boot.

_...oh, you son-of-a--_

Unluckily for Lex, he was too tired to get properly angry, and his drugs were the good drugs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_I. Am going? To **kill him**._

Yes. Lex was _thoroughly_ committed to his decided upon course of action.

He tromped up the steps of the loft, and came to a halt before the couch.

Clark was sprawled out over it, fast-asleep.

... _Sprawled out_ was not quite the word for it. Clark was laid out on the couch in his 'Fortress of Solitude' perfectly straight, hands rearranged like the living dead, with the slow rise and fall of his chest the only movement apparent. There was not even a fluttering under his eyelids.

Lex kept waiting for the next jab-from-nowhere. _Astral projection, maybe?_ It could explain a lot. He'd found the small crack in the window by his ear that morning. The quiet noise had startled him just before Lana had blown into the library, all-smiles. _If he can have a physical impact things far away, without having to touch them..._ It could explain a great many things.

Lex frowned and shook himself mentally. As far as he knew, what had been happening to him had had no detrimental _physical_ impact, just... disturbing, and terrifying in that they were completely unstoppable. Yes, the episodes ended eventually, and yes, he was left suffering from no lasting physical harm ...as far as he knew. He was cursing his paranoia now, though having gone to his doctors so often for invisible ailments that left neither bruising nor marks of any sort would have required an explanation, and he was _loathe_ to risk anyone else from finding about his possession by the alien-being Zod. He felt he'd learned his lesson after several rounds of torture with that madman in a metal cage, and the fire that had risked both his and Lana's lives.

...a fire that had mysteriously gone out, seemingly spontaneously all on its own.

Fires didn't do that.

 _...and someone's abilities only have an impact on the world at-large when people utilize them,_ Lex thought grimly. There had been no strange activity from Belle Reeve or any of the Level 33.1 facilities -- he would have been notified, otherwise -- and no new activity in the region. _That leaves possible sources in unsurveilled regions,_ and Clark was one of those, but for good reason. Clark had never attacked anyone first before. Not without a reason.

 _I suppose I gave him a reason,_ Lex thought with a grim mental smile.

He stepped forward and poked Clark in the forehead, hard.

Clark blinked his eyes open, and reflexively batted Lex's hand away from him.

...Lex clenched his jaw slightly and wondered if he might need to x-ray it for hairline fractures, once he got back to the mansion.

Clark blinked up at him, then abruptly sat up on the couch.

He stared.

Lex stared back.

Finally, Lex said, "Clark."

Clark stared for awhile, then his eyes narrowed slightly. "Lex. What are you doing here."

"What, I'm not allowed to come visit?" Lex drawled out sardonically, staring down at him.

Clark's eyes narrowed minutely further.

"If I'm not welcome at the mansion, you're not welcome here," Clark said in return, letting his forearms rest easily on his knees, looking less _hunched over teenager_ and more _a bit dangerous young man_. His posture was decidedly unwelcoming.

"I apologize, Clark; that was rude of me," Lex said lightly. He did not fail to note that Clark was remaining seated, as if he did not need the additional height to properly defend against Lex as a threat, but Lex was loathe to sit himself to prove that he did not find Clark enough of a threat that he felt an intimidation posture was necessary. Yet he did not want to accede the high ground so quickly in this confrontation.

Clark's gaze went hard. "Like you care."

"There's no reason to return rudeness in like measure," Lex continued. "One of us should be the better man."

By the way Clark's eyes widened and how he straightened in aggressive reflex-response to the stimuli, Lex was certain that, yes, he'd made it quite clear who he thought was the better man, and it sure as hell wasn't the one of them currently seated.

"Get out," Clark told him.

"This isn't your barn, like it is my mansion," Lex informed him with a thin smile. The farm was in single ownership by one Martha Kent. Technically, Clark had no legal rights or standing here.

Clark's eyes narrowed. "It _is_ my barn, and--" He cut himself off and regained his own momentum. _Pity._ "Why are you here?" Clark reiterated.

"Perhaps I am here to speak with your mother about supporting her platform," Lex said smoothly.

"She's never in the For-- in the barn loft; she's in the house," Clark said, working on a slow burn. "Why are you here."

"When was the last time you spoke with Lana?" Lex asked, and waited.

...And then he kept on waiting, because Clark didn't immediately shoot to his feet like he'd expected him to. Clark barely even tensed.

Lex casually took a step out a little more into the path of the central aisle between the couch and the low table in front of it, effectively and deliberately blocking off Clark's most direct path to the staircase in and out of the loft.

"Perhaps you should come over to _see_ her sometime," Lex tried, fishing carefully.

He noted Clark's non-reaction, and judged it too careful. "Why would I want to do that?" Clark said, eying him suspiciously.

"Oh. Aren't you still friends?" Lex teased out. _Or was it really that bad of a breakup?_ he mentally smirked. And for so long, he'd thought Clark had been avoiding _him_. Until the Halloween party...

Clark's eyes narrowed. "Maybe I'd rather not have to see you," he replied.

"Maybe," Lex echoed. "But you certainly weren't trying very hard to convince me of that in the greenhouse a few days ago," Lex pointed out, cocking his head at him.

"I wasn't there because I wanted to be."

 _Truth,_ Lex gauged of Clark's response. "Then why were you there?"

Lex watched Clark's hands curl slightly into fists, then relax under conscious effort. "you know why."

 _Non-answer._ "No, I really don't." _Let it go -- you have more important issues. Focus._ "Do you know," Lex began, licking his lips slightly, and eyeing Clark carefully, "Just a few days ago, it occurred to me that I feel as though the mansion is haunted by your presence."

The briefest of pauses, then a flicker of a smile from Clark, and he sat back into the couch, perfectly relaxed. _Damnit. What did I--_ "Yeah. I heard about that. Something you said to Lana?"

 _Oh, goddamnit. **Chloe**._ Lex fought not to grit his teeth. "Yes, I did." He fought to hold Clark's gaze levelly, and it took more effort than it should have to ask Clark directly, even knowing how such direct questions always caused Clark to lie, "Do you know anything about anyone haunting the mansion?"

Clark blinked up at him once. "I only heard about this haunting thing after you said something about it before."

 _Truth._ And that damn near floored Lex.

...right up until he realized that there had been just the slightest of pauses between the "it" and the "before", which meant...

...which meant...

 _...Jesus Christ. I did **not** actually give him the idea for doing this,_ Lex thought, feeling a headache coming on.

He wasn't entirely sure that it was a welcome reprieve, when he heard footsteps coming up the staircase to the loft.

"Hey Clark," Lois Lane called out as she ascended to the top. "What's-- _Luthor?_ " she said in surprise as she worked her way high enough to see who was actually in the loft, instead of assuming that she'd find Clark up there. "Kind of early in the morning for you to be oozing about, isn't it?" she said in a dubious tone.

Lex was left staring, and Clark wasn't able to make a quick getaway before Lois turned on him, too. "What's he doing here?" she asked Clark, pointing a thumb at Lex.

"I don't know," Clark said, with an undertone of 'he won't tell me.'

"Huh," said Lois. Then... "--wait, is this about the threesome?" she said, glancing between them as her eyebrows made out to hide in her hairline.

Lex stared at her blankly. _what the--_

"What." Clark said flatly.

"The--" Lois glanced between the two of them again, and got a really, really wide grin that the situation did _not_ in _any_ respect call for **at all**. "Threesome," Lois repeated. "I totally didn't believe Chloe when she said that--"

"Threesome." Clark said flatly.

Lex stood there and could only watch the trainwreck.

"Chloe said that Lana said that Lex said--"

"What the hell do you mean, 'threesome'," said Clark, just as flatly as before.

Lois got an evil glint in her eye. Lex braced himself. "A threesome is--"

"--I _know_ what a _threesome_ is, Lois," Clark ground out, but his tone implied, _but obviously there must be some other, non-standard meaning for that word_ with a side order of _because I don't think that means what Lex must think that means._

 _How is this my life,_ Lex wondered.

"--uh, hold on, lemme confirm my sources," Lois said after glancing over at Lex's face -- which made no sense, he had a _perfect_ poker face, he practiced it daily -- and then bent her head down over her cellphone, tapping away furiously, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth ever-so-slightly as she communicated with her stalwart cousin.

It really _was_ like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. Lex felt hot and cold in turns, and could not, for the life of him, turn his head to look over at Clark.

"...Okay, nevermind, that was just Chloe," Lois said, head coming up from her phone for words and air. Lex began to breathe a little more easily, up until Lane opened her mouth again and said, "Lana didn't tell Chloe that; Chloe told Lana that."

Dead silence in the loft.

...Yes. It was official. To hell with Lois, and forget Clark's ghostly pokings of doom. _Lex was going to kill **Chloe**_.

"What?" Lois said, the picture of innocence. "Not a good idea?"

" _Lois--!!!_ "

Lex turned his head slowly to watch Clark jump to his feet and fume.

"Hey, so, I wonder what your mom would think of--" Lois began.

Clark made a really strange choking sound.

"--the new flower arrangement for--" but Lois was darting down the staircase, half-laughing as she went, and who knew _what_ she was actually going to suggest once she was in the house.

Clark shouted angrily, and Lex twitched to jump out of the way as Clark--

\--vaulted the back of the couch with ease and raced around the end and down the stairs, completely bypassing Lex entirely.

Lex stood there for awhile, watching the chase and hearing the fading shouts and taunting.

 _...Well, that could have been worse,_ Lex thought.

Though he couldn't really see how.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Coda:

Lex was tossing and turning that night.

_Threesome._

What. The. Hell.

_In what universe, on what planet, **exactly** , could that ever possibly work?_

Not to mention that Clark was straight. That Clark was-- god, it didn't bear thinking about, what Clark was. (At least he'd had a day of work without any unseen-yet-maddeningly-felt interruption, which would have been enough for cause of celebration, but...)

The thought twisted around in his mind. _What if Lana still wants Clark?_ and _What if I'm not enough for her?_ slowly morphed into _What if she wants Clark, **too?**_

It made him shiver.

Least of which because he was **jealous**. _In the extreme._

And, try as he might, he could not for the life of him figure out as he tossed and turned in bed _which_ of the two he was more disinclined to share.

With **anyone**.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Epilogue:

"So, how well do you know Luthor?" Lois asked.

"Huh?" said Oliver Queen, turning towards her.

"Lex Luthor," Lois said. "You know him, right? Same circles?"

"Yeah," Oliver admitted. "I went to Excelsior Prep with him," he tentatively offered with an unrestrained smile, and a little hidden wariness. Lex Luthor was trouble. ...Wait, was Lois interested in Lex? _Hell no! That bast--_ He'd been attending that ball with a woman! That... what the hell was her name? Lara? Ilana? Lanie?

"Oh, good!" Lois exclaimed, pulling her chair in a bit closer and leaning in conspiratorilly, and that set off warning bells in Oliver's mind. "Is he bisexual?" she continued.

Oliver stared at her blankly. He bit back the knee-jerk response of _uh, no_ and instead said, "...Why do you want to know?"

"Well, it's just that my cuz had a throwaway idea about a threesome, and I think it's definitely worth looking into," Lois began excitedly, and Oliver started to both squick out -- he was _not_ into guys, and he'd rather scoop out his innards with a rusty spoon than ever have any sort of sexual contact with... his brain just failed right there -- and he was about to panic, until she said, "because Lana and Clark used to be a thing before Lana and Lex were" -- _oh, hey, that was her name!_ \-- "and they're both fighting over her, it's a complete mess, I swear, but I've been asking around and apparently, god, the two of them..." Lois gave him an eyeroll that deserved its own standing ovation. " _Kansas boys_ ," she said derisively. "The two of them have been knocking around together since before either of them got involved with Lana," Lois said. "Just, not _together_ together."

She gave him a long knowing look that made no sense and helped his understanding not at all.

Needless to say, it took Oliver awhile to process all that.

"So," Oliver said slowly. "You think that Lex and Lana..." -- _the girl from the party_ \-- "and this Clark..."

"Clark Kent," Lois said.

Oliver blinked. "...Um." _What?_

"Yeah, yeah, Senator Kent's son," Lois said, making an impatient gesture that he finish his thought.

_...Right._

Oliver swallowed, and soldiered on. "You think that Lex and Lana and Clark might make a good... threesome together?" he said. "With each other?"

"Yes," Lois said, like it was the most straightforward thing in the world.

Then she propped her head on her fists and asked, "So, is Luthor bi?"

Oliver stared at her for a moment.

He spared a breath of relief that Lois wasn't suggesting that _they_ make a threesome with Lex-freaking-Luthor of all people. That would not go well.

...and then he realized that that might be her next thought if he wasn't very careful in how he handled this. Lex being straight as an arrow and with twice the usual length of rod up his ass about it was hardly the least of the hurdles to Lois' desired matchmaking threesome-of-others.

He also thought about how fucking hilarious it was that Lex Luthor, with his 'Lex-girl' reputation, had Lois thinking he was also into _men_ , and then realized with a growing epiphany how utterly fucked up it would be to have gay men propositioning Lex out in the middle of god-knows-where, hitting on him and...

 _Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha!_ God, he would give good money to see how that smooth bastard would squirm!

...and once the rumor was out there...

 _Holy fucking shit,_ Oliver thought. _He will never see it fucking coming._ And Oliver would get away with it, too, not the least of which because he wouldn't even be the one doing it to the bald-headed bastard. It would be practically untraceable. Lane was so gung-ho, she'd do it all herself, racing ahead of any part of the rumormill he might get to, and all he'd have to do would be to give weak denials that would 'obviously' make lie to the truth well after the fact to help reinforce it and utterly destroy any final suspicions to the contrary...

But then he thought about Senator Kent's son, and how he was trying to make a good impression with the Senator. He thought about what sort of person Lex Luthor was, and what sort of person Senator Kent's son probably was, knowing her. He thought about how he knew full well that _Lex Luthor_ gaining carnal knowledge of her son -- or vice-versa -- or anyone even _thinking _that he had, somehow -- would be **extremely** detrimental to any working relationship they might forge in the future, if she had any idea that Oliver had known about this thing before it was set in motion.__

__He stared at his eager 'co-conspirator' and thought about exactly how persuasive one Lois Lane could be._ _

__He smiled, and demurred, and crossed his legs a little uncomfortably. "Well, you have to understand...."_ _

__Lois' eyes brightened. She shifted to the edge of her seat._ _

__Oliver paused, just the right amount of time to really think it all over..._ _

__And then he said, in not quite an outright lie, "Nobody ever liked to talk about it... Kansas and all..."_ _

__Lois' grin was blinding._ _

__Oliver was looking forward to sitting back and laughing his ass off._ _

__~*~*~*~*~*~_ _


End file.
